 I've been waiting so long for this moment right here. The numbers are finally in. We know how good of a game NBA 2K20 is, at least as it comes to sales. Look, if y'all new to the channel, subscribe. If you're watching this video, click the like button. It's great right now. When you click it, it's turning blue. Your fingers gonna vibrate. It's a fantastic tingly sensation. You should try it. Holy, look, you don't have to look too far in 2K community to know that not many people are a fan of 2K22. Like, I didn't think it could get worse from 2K21, but it managed to. Some content creators just up and left. They just walked away. They left like this. And others just stopped uploading. Others is like slowing down pace. Overall, people are just unhappy. But it depends who you ask. I've talked to newer 2K gamers that love the game or like this, hi. But when you talk to the people that play this city or part or program and they play NBA 2K22, they've been playing for a while. They hate the game. Who knows what the reason is, but the numbers are finally in. This got me really excited. NBA 2K22 has 1.9 million gamers playing daily, now at over 8 million units sold. We'll get to that 1.9 number in a minute. But what? Yo, that would literally, if we're just ranking the 2Ks and we could add all over to VG charts, put NBA 2K22 at the seventh best-selling 2K of all time, which if you think about it's not that bad, except that that's a huge steep fall-off from all the other more recent, well-performing 2Ks. And the crazy part is, I'm fairly confident that they're counting the current gen and the next gen version as two different units here. So when they say 14 million units sold of 2K20, you buy the cross bundle version of the game and you have the current gen and the next gen. That's two separate games. I wouldn't even be surprised if they included mobile sales. Like, I don't know. It's like an artist bundling in their album sales with like merch or tours, right? It just inflates the numbers a little bit so the investors are happy. Everybody gets a nice little ego boost. So there's a good chance that the alarm bells are ringing pretty loud right now at the 2K headquarters or maybe they're not tripping. The reality is, is now they're making more money than ever off mobile, but beyond that, they're also making a ton more money off microtransactions. So even if less people are buying the game, if the people that buy the game are spending more, kinda evens out. But let's get back to this 1.9 million number. I can't imagine it doesn't include mobile gamers cause there's no way on the fucking planet. Two million people are getting together every day to play on the 2K22. There just isn't, bro. That's competing with some of the most popular games on consoles in general. The numbers have to either be cherry-plicked inflated in somehow which way. Like maybe when 2K had like a very big event or maybe these are like the first week after launch, there's just no way you're convincing me 2K is like blowing games like CSGO out the water. I don't believe it. So including the mobile people, maybe I don't know what their mobile numbers are looking like. I don't play the mobile versions of the game as possible. But man is 1.9 million, you just impressive. And that's really all they have to do is impress the investors enough so that they don't panic. Because when you hear eight million in sales and you know 2K20 sold 14 million in sales, you might wanna panic a little bit. They also mentioned that recurrent consumer spending grew 10% year over year, which means that people are spending more on microtransactions. So like I said, the people that buy the game just happened to be spending more. I was reading one of the articles I was reporting on this. Look how much fucking there is going on. Based on their sales for 2021, 2K22 did almost everything right. As we continue through season four and season five, we should see even more updates brought to the game. They did everything right, really? This is why like sometimes like, I fuck with people who keep it a butt, bro. But man, you're not keeping it a butt. Come on, what game ever does anything right? Let alone a 2K game. Really? They did everything right when they added more microtransactions or they reintroduced the city, they ran that back. They did everything right, but they did everything right the way the game was barely operating the first two weeks of the game's launch or there'd be huge hangups in the story mode where you couldn't just, I love how they did everything right there. Come on man, just keep it a butt. Just say they did plenty of shit wrong, they did some good stuff too. The reason I've been waiting for these moments, maybe some people just don't care, their numbers, it really doesn't matter. But you have to think 2K is motivated by profit. We all know this, we've been known this for the past what, five, six years? So if we know that and we know that 2K has a, how should I say this? It's not making as much money or it's not selling as much game or their trajectory is no longer upwards. You could see why they might want to react. What's the word when you do something real rash? Point is for once they might actually be willing to make some of the changes we've been asking for. Because if everything is going great, why the fuck would they change the formula? It's going great. So who knows? I remember reading one of the NBA two, I was watching the long ass video. It was like a one hour stream from one of the NBA 2K developers and they said that the first year of a next generation game, there's usually a lot of new technology that they don't know how to grasp yet. By the second year, they're fine tuning things and they're getting there. But by the third year, they have everything down. So maybe 2K 23 is the year where things finally change. But holding out hope is a fool's game. It's 2K at the end of the day. You hold out hope and they'll crush you like this, bro. Man, that's the one franchise you should not hold out hope for. Just keep your expectations real low and then no matter what they do, it'll impress you. I don't know if EA was smelling blood in the water. We'll talk about what they've been up to in a little bit. But before we do, yo look, Agent Beam started me to triumphant return on the last episode, right? Yo bro, it's been a minute since he's been on the channel. We talked about PowerDF situation, how his whole clan disbanded. Well, turns out he's back. After deactivating his account for maybe like a week, he started posting on Twitter saying, minor setback for a major comeback. None of this beef changes the fact that I'm the best 2K player to ever touch this community. PSA, if you used to be in DF, I'm hunting you. You can't run, you can't hide, I'm coming for you. On 2K guys, chill. I said in my video, bro, like at the end of the day, I'm not one for canceling nobody. He's an L-friend, an L-man's for sure. I'd argue potentially a bad human being in general. But bro, chill out. Community was acting like he just like massacred like a community of human beings or something. Like there's levels to how frustrated you should be depending on the crime that was committed. In reality, bro, people stuck around the clan for a long ass time because they had something to gain. So that should speak to people's intentions, regardless of the fact. It seems like maybe everybody in that clan was out for themselves. But regardless, these are all assumptions and none of my business. Whether or not you wish the best for power or you hope his career fails and dies is up to you. But what I do know is 2K has been historically one of the most toxic communities. And let's be honest, guys, the past three or four years has been pretty positive because it was bad in 2K 16, 2K 15, 2K, man, just the type of shit I remember seeing. People getting doxxed and swatted left and right. People's channels getting hacked and PSNs getting terminated. Yeah, bro, I will never forget the type that people do to each other just for fun because they were bored. So comparatively, man, hey, what it is, mate. If you don't like his energy, stay away from him. But I thought it was an interesting story. Look, bro, it gets interesting for NBA 2K 22 because it's not often somebody decides to take action, but this parent decided to because I read this headline saying class action lawsuit targets NBA 2K's micro transactions. I remember reading an article that like, I think Germany or one of the countries in Europe decided to ban loot boxes and shit like that in video games. But this parent is taking it in his or her own hands. They say the case went from state court to federal court and there's allegations of unfair, deceptive and unlawful practices, including illegal gambling practices. But bro, whether or not you believe it's illegal gambling, I think that most apps you play, most websites you're on, most video games you play, most any form of entertainment is trying to hook you. I try to hook you at the beginning of this video so you watch the rest of the video. Hey, it's one thing when it's a child because they're not aware of this stuff. But if you're a grown-ass adult getting baited, that's on you. This parent is just like, I guess maybe just a lawyer, real litigious. The likelihood something comes out of this is very low. And I'm not even one for the gambling stuff in video games. I personally think there's no place for it. I think GTA 4 opened the doors when people started paying money for DLC and they popularized the f*** out of it. Like it was great DLC, so people started spending money and then it clicked for all the developers and publishers. We could just charge people after the games launched. It doesn't have to be like a one-time money-earning thing. You can make money throughout the life cycle of the game. And I think that that's a fantastic strategy for monetizing a product, but sometimes it comes at the cost of the game and NBA 2K is one of those examples where the way it's formatted, it comes at the cost of the game itself. Which is crazy to think about. You're compromising the integrity of the game to make money. That literally is the short-term strat if I ever seen it. You're pushing the boundaries in ways you shouldn't. And we've talked about the micro-transaction things more times than I can counsel. What's the point? But the suit states that NBA 2K 22's payments scheme psychologically distances players from the reality of spending royal money. Because you're spending VCU, not spending US dollars, right? Or Canadian dollars or Rubles or Rupees. Some of you guys have Rupees. This is only interesting because I think it's only a matter of time before some legislator puts up some sort of legislation to finally do something about the loot boxes in video games. But in my humble opinion, I'd rather they didn't. Because I don't trust the people that y'all vote for in this country of America. And I feel like it's a slippery slope before they start finding other things they wanna amend in entertainment. Man, there's no shortage of fucking legislators that are trying to convince me that video games is bad for people or that it influences them negatively. And while there are plenty of awful influences in video games, you trying to convince me because I shot somebody in Call of Duty that I'll be more likely to do IRL. Not only do studies not support it, but Jesus, can you imagine if violent video games just disappeared or were starting yet to start censoring them and there's no blood allowed in video games? Like these are all things that can happen. So I'd rather that it just went untouched. If you're a parent, just pay attention to what your child is spending their time on. And if you're an adult, hey come on bro, you're a full fucking fledged adult. Like you can decide not to spend your money. I get it, it's addicting, it's gambling. I'm not even saying it's not addictive. But at the same time, I would rather not the slippery slope of legislation. EA decided to throw their hat in the mix because they're not done teasing whatever basketball game they're working on bro. Like man, I've read article after article for years since they stopped posting NBA Live. They said they were getting back into basketball. They started to post some NBA 2K's top senior developers and still we've been hearing very little to no information until EA posted this tweet where they said, loading madness loading. While if anybody else tweeted this, I think they were just like really excited about March Madness. EA also has been rumored to been working on like a college sports game. And now that they can legally do it again, they've done it in the past. They seem like the best people to be able to pull it off successfully. So this almost feels like a tease in some way, but it's been almost a week since this tweet was posted and there's been no follow up because March Madness is actively going on right now. I thought maybe like there'd be some sort of like follow up or maybe like the trailer of some sorts, just something. But all we have now is some tweets and maybe it's just EA recognizing that is a very popular event. Maybe if I post some things, it'll get more likes. I don't want to say hold out hope, but if you're a huge fan of college sports and you like the NCAA games EA used to make, maybe you hold out hope. For what it's worth, I've been seeing, I refuse to call it a resurgence, but more people enjoying playing NBA 2K 22 is kind of making me want to hop back on and low-cap and waiting for the next season. I've been seeing Pro Ampop and my Team Pop, the city's still pretty dead. But maybe more importantly, and this is like a key point that I've been seeing people in the community talk about for the past few weeks, maybe a couple months now, it seems as though a lot of the players that were on current gen, like the Ticinos of the world, there were a few others I was watching on Twitch, called the man. The guys like some of the huge content creators that prefer to play the game on current gen have been making a transition to next gen. And that's important because one of the biggest problems we had at the launch of 2K 22 was that it felt like the community was split. I had to ask what version of the game you were playing before I asked what console were you playing on before I asked, do you want to play with me? It's like all of those preliminary questions make it difficult for you to play with the people you want to play with. In reality, having everybody on one game makes that easier and then having cross-play makes it so that it's a very social game. And 2K is designed to be a social game. It's one of the most social games, next to like Call of Duty and GTA V, so why not add features that allow people to be as social as possible? Regardless of the fact, I think it's a good thing that more people are on next gen and 2K didn't sell awfully. It sold decent, definitely not what I guess the investors were hoping for. So maybe they do shake something up. I'm not entirely sure what to expect for 2K 23, but because we do know that NBA 2K bought a whole new dev team to work on current gen, we could almost but confirm that not only will the next gen version of 2K 23 drop, but also will a current gen version. Which version people decide to play on launch? Who knows? Sad reality is it's still kind of difficult to get next generation consoles. And even though it's been like two years since they've released, we're still calling them next generation. That's how hard it is to get them. So it's a good thing that at least there's a decent, if not good version of the game, a comparable version of the game on current gen for the people that can't or can't afford to get the next gen. But man, does it feel like everybody's split, but if for the first time in a while, it feels like now more than ever, everybody seems to be on the same page. I'm thinking about hopping on Prime just to see what the experience is like. Hopefully they patched up all the bugs that made me want to stop playing at the launch of the game. And I might just hop on someone's account because I can't be asked to grind 20, 30 hours into a build just to have that experience, just to see if Pro-AM's even playable. In the comments, let me know if you're still playing NBA 2K22, what generation and what console. If y'all new to the channel, man, you enjoy NBA 2K22 content, subscribe here. If not, I'll catch you guys in the next one. I'm out, peace.